Friday, March 4, 2011

Make Love, Not Anti-depressants

A lot of conversations in my circle lately have been about the lack of love and compassion in society these days. And the fact that almost everyone I know and love has been on anti-depressants; some for a short period, some for years. Some do chemically need them, I think. But I also think that what brings it all on for most people is a huge deficit of love and caring in our fellow humans these days.



Think about it- the governments are all spending zillions on wars we don't want, while taking away crucial services to humans in need. What's wrong with that picture? People on the street walk along attitudinally, as if they'll spit on you for glancing up to their eyes. Media mouths get on the air and spout hatred, cheering on violence and contempt for your fellow babies on this planet because they think something different than you. Much of pop music is focussed on money, sex- but not love- and anger. What happened to us? What the hell happened to us?

For one thing, having done the Cymbalta trip for 2 years (and not for depression, for nerve pain) I know how entirely self-obsessed drugs make a person. Which was compounded by the opiates. A society of zombies on pharmaceuticals makes for a culture of unengaged citizenry and selfish fearful interaction. Everybody's living in fear.


To all that, I say "No more." Stop the madness. Stop pumping drugs into people and watch what happens. We need to find our commonalities again. We're human. We're fragile. We need to be good to each other. We can heal from this, and be wiser.

"To stare into the night sky and ponder why there is something rather than nothing, to experience awe at a child's birth, to want the world to be transformed, to seek forgiveness for your own failure and stupidity, to feel the need for silence, to suppose that love has to be at the heart of things – these experiences are not the preserve of the religious.
In many such things, those of faith and those of none sit alongside each other as fellow travellers."- Giles Fraser

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